Minimum Damage
by Don't Preach
Summary: This series is collection of one shots and shorts… brief glimpses into the younger days of all of the JR cast. Most stories rated "T" but listed as "M" for safety. Sunny Side Up, Act III: Six year old Akihiko's life in England with his mother is anything but "Sunny Side Up" today, however, Akihiko makes a new and enduring friend.
1. 1: New Word: Misaki

******6/5/12 ******

****Dear Readers,****

****When FF did it's last purge I removed most of my stories, fearing for their safety. I am re-posting them now and hoping that they will stay up. New chapters will be added eventually.****

**The majority of these fics will be rated "T" though there may be an "M" scattered here or there. These chapters will also have warnings indicating their content. Should said content be beyond your comfort zone I respectfully ask that you click out of the story, rather than report it. This leaves the piece up for others who have differing tastes and sensibilities.**

**These pieces will be glimpses into the past of the various JR characters. This little "head canon" of mine allows me to better understand why the players might act as they do in the series. Plus I am a mad fool for backstory.  
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**Sincerely,**

**Don't Preach**

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><p><strong>Disclaimer: I do not own Junjou Romantica or any of its characters<br>**

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><p><strong>Minimum Damage<strong>

**Misaki (Age Eight): New Word**

Misaki slowly opened the door, once inside he closed it softly behind him and leaned heavily against it. He sighed and hung his jacket and his backpack up in the entry before kicking out of his shoes.

He still wasn't used to the new apartment. It was so much smaller than the one they'd lived in before the accident. Even more than this, though it still held some of their furnishings, it didn't smell like their home had when his parents were alive. Misaki had always loved coming home from school to the aromas of his mother's cooking and the undercurrent of his father pipe tobacco. Now it just smelled slightly damp and of burnt toast.

Misaki was beginning to equate these scents with despair.

The boy slipped into the side room he shared with Takahiro. Though at first he'd been kind of disappointed he couldn't have his own room any more, now that he woke up so often with the terror of his recurring nightmares, the eight-year-old was always grateful to discover his Nii-chan so close by. Not that Misaki ever woke Takahiro up if he could help it.

His brother was working two jobs right now to supplement the modest insurance policy payments that were currently keeping a roof over their heads. Misaki knew how tired this made him. Besides, he didn't want to be a bother, especially after what had happened the last time he'd been too needy.

The small boy quickly pulled out of his school uniform and slipped into a pair of knee length khaki shorts and an over-sized hoodie. He made sure to hang his clean clothes up and put the soiled ones in the hamper. It wasn't much, but Misaki wanted to do whatever he could to help out and he knew Nii-chan liked it when everything was neat. He once told Misaki it helped him to think better.

Padding back out into the main room Misaki wished he could think better. He frowned in the direction of his backpack where his homework waited. He'd never done very well in school: everything always seemed so complicated. He wished sometimes that his teachers would explain things more clearly. Misaki felt down deep somewhere that if they did he would surely be able to understand.

After all, he'd always done so much better when his mama or Takahiro had helped him. Now however, with his schedule, Nii-chan couldn't help nearly as much, though he still tried to. But it wasn't the same as before and Misaki was painfully aware that sometimes, despite his older brother's patience, Takahiro was frustrated by how slow he was.

Misaki's eyes dropped and his shoulders hunched slightly at these thoughts. "Who needed English anyway?" he grumbled under his breath. Then boy looked guiltily around the apartment. He'd made a promise after what had happened to never complain again. Still, sometimes when he was alone he couldn't help it.

"_Takahashi Misaki. Eight years old. Grade school student. Failure. Dear Nii-chan please forgive your little brother,"_ Misaki thought.

Then Misaki cocked his head as the sounds next door filtered through the apartment's thin walls. He could hear the voices of the boys fighting. That meant Tsuzuki-san must not be home. At this thought a sudden panic gripped him and his heart started beating wildly.

There was only one place Misaki could think of that Tsuzuki-san could be. He moved over to the entry, slipped back into his shoes and grabbed his thin jacket from its hook by the door. Out on the busy streets minutes later, Misaki dodged easily among the crowds. Sometimes there was a benefit to being small he supposed. Though it also meant he got pushed around a lot too.

After a dash across a couple busy streets Misaki found himself at a neighborhood market. He hung about the front nervously for about fifteen minutes. Then just when he thought he'd made a mistake by coming, Tsuzuki-san emerged, wheeling her wire cart with a couple additional cloth bags of groceries suspended from one of her arms.

"Mi-chan," Tsuzuki exclaimed seeing the small boy waiting at the store entrance. "What on earth are you doing here? Why aren't you at the apartment? Kato isn't being mean to you again is he?"

Misaki dropped his eyes and blushed. "No, Tsuzuki-san," he stammered. "I knew that today was your shopping day and I thought you might need some help carrying your groceries home."

Tsuzuki looked at the little boy's earnest green eyes. She knew she should scold him for coming out into the busy streets like this. His older brother Takahashi-kun would be beside himself if he'd known Misaki had traveled to the store by himself to find her, rather than go directly to her apartment as he was supposed to every day after school until the older boy got home from work.

But the woman also understood that given what had happened, Misaki had a difficult time waiting for people to come home and she knew that her absence had probably made the little boy nervous. So instead of a reprimand, Tsuzuki offered Misaki a slight nod and a smile.

"That's awfully sweet of you, Mi-chan, but you shouldn't be out here on the streets by yourself. If Takahiro knew what you'd done he'd be terribly worried."

Hearing this, the tentative smile Misaki had been wearing faltered. He dropped his eyes to the ground immediately and a hot blush of shame filled his pale cheeks. It was his fault already that Takahiro was worried so much of the time now as it was.

Seeing the effect of her words Tsuzuki sighed. She had such a hard time remembering that Misaki was not one of her own coarse sons. She clucked at the small boy's sensitivity wondering how a lamb like this would ever survive out in the wolfish world.

"But I bet Takahiro would be very proud to know that his little brother was so considerate, Mi-chan," Tsuzuki offered. "I wish my boys would take a lesson or two from you as well about helping their mother."

Misaki raised his eyes hesitantly at these words.

"Here, since you came all this way you might as well make yourself useful," the woman said holding out the cloth bags that weighted her arms. Tsuzuki watched the pain in Misaki's huge green eyes soften as the boy tentatively took the sacks.

The two walked back to the apartment in companionable silence. The streets were busy so the majority of their focus was spent on staying together and navigating the crowds. Once they reached the blocky apartment building both simultaneously let out a sigh of relief which caused Tsuzuki to smile and Misaki to giggle.

Reaching her apartment, Tsuzuki pushed into its crowded interior. It was a small, two bedroom unit she shared with her husband and three sons. Tsuzuki's husband traveled quite extensively as a low ranking salesman, so usually quite often it was just she and her boys.

Misaki watched Tsuzuki sigh again, only this time in exasperation as she took in the jumble of shoes, book bags, and jackets strewn around the floor of the entry. She stepped out of her shoes lining them up carefully against the wall before stepping into her slippers and heading with her cart in tow to the kitchen.

Misaki took his own shoes off and stepped into the slippers kept there for his afternoon stays. Then he carefully lined up all the other shoes in the entrance and hung up the bags and the coats.

"Mi-chan, where are you with my groceries?" Tsuzuki called from the kitchen.

Misaki grabbed the bags and scrambled out of the entry.

"Thank you, dear," Tsuzuki said taking the bags and setting them on the counter.

Misaki watched the woman put things away. Then he glanced over to where Tsuzuki's three boys were huddled around the TV playing video games. Whatever the ruckus had been earlier, things must have been settled as the three were now exclaiming loudly over what Kato, the oldest boy's character was doing.

"Do you need any help Tsuzuki-san?" Misaki asked shyly.

Tsuzuki's attention however was currently focused on her rambunctious sons. "Boys, keep it down now or it goes off!" She shouted at the trio.

"But, Mama!" Ryuu, the youngest boy whined," I haven't had my turn yet!" His tear-stained face clearly declared him the loser in the boys' earlier conflict.

"Kato, Naoto, share with your little brother!" Tsuzuki scolded.

Both older boys ignored her initially until she increased her volume. "Boys!"

"But he's always messes things up!" Kato, the oldest boy complained, his eyes finally leaving the screen for a minute to look crossly at his mother.

"Do not!" Ryuu cried indignantly.

"Shut up dumb ass," Naoto hissed, smacking Ryuu on the shoulder.

"Mama!" Ryuu shrieked now that his advocate was home. "Naoto hit me!"

Misaki cringed aside as Tsuzuki strode out from behind the counter and over to the TV. She hit the "power" button and the screen went blank eliciting a round of groans and wails from her sons.

"Enough!" the lady said sternly. "Homework now! I've had it with this noise!"

"I was almost at level eight!" Kato protested.

"Did you hear what I said?" Tsuzuki countered. "Or do you want me to tell you father how difficult you've been being?"

This silenced the boys effectively as, if he was troubled to get involved, their father was a strict disciplinarian. Misaki shivered at the danger implied in Tsuzuki's words. He knew a bit more than he would have liked to about the senior Tsuzuki-san as unfortunately the boy's rumblings were not the only sounds that bled through the thin walls regularly.

Tsuzuki went to retrieve her boys' backpacks as the disgruntled trio stumped reluctantly over to the table. As the woman returned with her three boy's school bags she stopped along the way and affectionately ruffled Misaki's already tousled overgrown bangs. "Thank you for straightening the entryway Mi-chan," she said kindly.

Misaki beamed at the praise and the touch until he looked over and saw Tsuzuki's three sons glaring at him. "And do you have homework, Mi-chan?" Tsuzuki inquired.

"_Takahashi Misaki. Eight years old. Grade school student. Liar. Dear Nii-chan please forgive your little brother."_ Misaki muttered to himself.

"I did it already," he lied lamely, but Tsuzuki was already at the table now doling out her boy's homework.

Misaki stood at the edge of the kitchen watching Tsuzuki get her boys started. It reminded him so much of what his family had looked like when he and Takahiro used to come home from school and his mama was there.

The boy dropped his eyes as he felt unwanted tears come up. He hated crying, it made him feel like such a baby, even if Takahiro had told him it was okay to still be sad. Misaki wished sometimes that his brother understood. He didn't deserve to cry, the whole thing, what had happened, was his fault after all.

Tsuzuki looked up from where her settled brood had begun attacking their homework with far less zeal then they usually turned on each other. She saw Misaki's obvious sorrow. Moving away from the table and into the kitchen she murmured to Misaki, "Would you like to help me, Mi-chan? I could stand having some vegetables cut for dinner."

Without looking up, Misaki nodded. He followed her to the kitchen and listened carefully to her instructions. He brightened when he realized he could follow them. It was so much simpler than school.

Tsuzuki was surprised by the little boy's aptitude. With each task Misaki completed she offered him another. "You've rather got a knack for this cooking thing I think, Mi-chan," Tsuzuki smiled as she watched the youth stirring the pot on the stove a short time later.

Misaki smiled shyly at this. He'd never been particularly good at anything before.

"You watch the pot, okay? And keep stirring. I'm going to go check on the laundry in the meantime," Tsuzuki said picking up her basket and heading out to the apartment's tiny balcony.

No sooner had the sliding glass door shut than Misaki turned at eight-year-old Naoto's harsh whisper. "I know why you're good at cooking… It's because you're really a girl isn't it? Why else would your parents give you a girl's name."

Ten-year-old Kato followed this with a snicker, "If Misaki's not a girl then he's a homo. I bet that's why your parents named you that, because they could tell what you were you were born. You even look like one now.

"Homo," Six-year-old Ryuu echoed and then giggled.

Misaki turned away from the boys biting his bottom lip. He blushed fiercely, not knowing what the word meant, but understanding without a doubt it was something bad.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Two hours later there was a knock on the door and Misaki looked up hopefully from where he was tucked into a corner of the couch. He had his knobby knees drawn up to his chest, trying to make himself as small as possible. He'd been watching the other boy's play their endless video games now that homework had been finished.

Misaki's huge green eyes lit up at the sight of his brother in the entry. "Nii-chan!" he cried happily, immensely relieved that the world had delivered his brother back to him. He unfolded himself and headed over to Takahiro.

"Misaki!" Takahiro greeted, shaking the weariness from his voice at the sight of his baby brother.

"Takahashi-kun, here. This is for you," Tsuzuki-san offered, holding out a couple plastic containers to the elder Takahashi.

"Ah… Tsuzuki-san please, you've already done so much for us watching Misaki, you can't start feeding us too."

"Well you know it only seems fair since Mi-chan helped make it."

"Really?" Takahiro looked wide eyed at Misaki.

"He's got quite a knack for cooking," Tsuzuki supplied.

Misaki blushed at this as Takahiro reached out and ruffled Misaki's head. "Getting tired of your brother's, are you?"he teased.

Takahiro took the containers gratefully from Tsuzuki. "Thank you Tsuzuki-san. I meant to stop at the market, but I wanted to be sure and get home on time."

Misaki's head shot up at this. "Nii-chan you didn't rush home because of me did you?" he asked softly.

Takahiro just smiled at his little brother, "come on Misaki, let's go home."

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

Back at their apartment Takahiro watched Misaki warming things on the stove while he worked on papers from his job at their table. "You doing okay Mi?" he asked curiously.

"Ummhumm," Misaki nodded not looking up.

"You know it's nice to smell home cooking again, even nicer not to have to be the one making it," Takahiro murmured looking back down at his spread sheets.

Misaki turned his head at this comment. He studied his brother intently, watching as Takahiro slipped off his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes. "Nii-chan," Misaki said softly stepping towards the table. He grasped the back of one of the chairs so his hands wouldn't flutter nervously as they seemed drawn to do.

"Ummm" Takahiro said redonning his glasses without looking up.

"Tsuzuki –san shops on Tuesdays, if you left me some money I could go get groceries with her. Then you wouldn't have to do it."

Takahiro raised his eyes and tipped his head slightly looking at Misaki.

"I could learn to cook too. Tsuzuki said she would teach me," Misaki stammered.

"I don't know Mi, I don't want you taking on too much," Takahiro sighed.

"But I want to help," Misaki murmured.

Just then Takahiro's phone rang. "We'll talk about this later okay?"

Misaki watched as his brother stood up and moved over to the balcony door. "Usagi!" he greeted cheerfully stepping outside and closing the door behind him.

Misaki tried not to frown as he moved back over to the stove. He'd never met his brother's friend Usagi, but already the man annoyed him. Misaki felt bad for being so petty but the man called his brother almost every day and each time he called Takahiro would leave the room because of "grown up talk."

The boy sighed, as he resumed his stirring. He watched his brother's animated conversation through the glass door. Misaki knew Nii-chan needed to have friends but he felt quite confident if he ever had to meet this needy Usagi person he wouldn't like him.

"_Takahashi Misaki. Eight years old. Grade school student. Selfish. Dear Nii-chan please forgive your little brother."_ Misaki frowned at his constant shortcomings.

Sighing at the weight of what a bad person he was for thinking such terrible things, Misaki turned the stove down and went to get his step stool so he could get the dishes down from the cupboard and set the table for dinner.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Later that night Misaki was sitting on his futon looking at a dog eared manga. After a soft knock on the door, Nii-chan came in and plopped down next to Misaki.

"I thought about what you said Misaki," Takahiro said looking at his little brother, the barest edges of his sorrow visible behind his smile. He pulled out his wallet and gave a number of bills to Misaki.

"Now you have Tsuzuki-san help you make a list and get just what we need. Okay? And you can cook if you want, but don't feel like you have to."

Misaki beamed at the trust this new responsibility demonstrated. There was nothing more in the world that Misaki wanted at this point than to make his brother proud of him.

"And I have something else for you," Takahiro murmured. He pulled out a magazine he had rolled up and hidden from view in his back pocket. "While I didn't make it to the store, I did manage to pick this up at a stand on the way home. There's the story that you've been following and a new one by an up and coming manga-ka named Ijuuin something. His drawings are kind of neat. I looked at it on the train ride home."

"Nii-chan, thank you!" Misaki breathed happily. Then his look of delight slipped a bit. "But you shouldn't be spending your money on stuff like this."

"Ah… well I'm the head of the house now, so I think I can decide what we should buy," Takahiro said with mock seriousness. "Besides I don't think an occasional magazine will break us."

Misaki looked at this brother, his green eyes filled with gratitude for the gift. He watched as Takahiro slid back further on the bed, until he was seated at its head, his back resting against the wall.

The older Takahashi patted the mattress next to him. "Come here, Misaki, and read to me for a bit," he coaxed.

"Really?" Misaki asked timidly. "But what about your work?"

"I'm done for the night, thankfully!" Takahiro breathed a sigh of relief and offered Misaki a warm smile.

Misaki wasted no time slipping over next to his brother. This reading of manga was something his father had done with him occasionally to help Misaki with his troubled reading.

Misaki leaned against his brother, basking in the older boy's warmth. Takahiro kindly helped Misaki every time he stumbled and never was critical. Soon Misaki forgot how nervous reading usually made him and fell into the story, unaware of how much easier his soft voice was flowing. As the two went through the issue together, feeling an old familiar sense of family, Misaki almost forgot for a moment that it was just the two of them.

Then there came a part in the tale when the characters were fighting. Remembering the events of the afternoon, Misaki suddenly stopped reading. He looked up at Takahiro.

A furrow creased his older brother's brow. "Everything okay Mi? Why did you stop? You were doing so well."

"Nii-chan, can I ask you a question?" Misaki ventured hesitantly.

"Sure kid," Takahiro smiled at his brother but the grin fell from his lips instantly when he heard Misaki ask, "What does 'homo' mean?"

Seeing the expression on his brother's face, Misaki was sure he'd just said something terrible.

"Where did you hear that word, Misaki?" Takahiro asked.

Misaki looked down blushing and shrugged. "I heard a boy call another boy it at school," whispered. "Is it really bad?"

Takahiro sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking not for the first time, he was completely unprepared for this new role he had to fulfill.

"Misaki, I don't want to hear you ever using that word. Okay?" He said gently but firmly.

"But what does it mean, Nii-chan?" Misaki was now desperate to know.

Takahiro looked at Misaki seriously. "You know how boys like girls and eventually they get married and have a family," he said hesitantly.

Misaki looked at Takahiro wide eyed and nodded.

"Well sometimes some boys like other boys instead of girls and that word is not nice name for boys like that."

Misaki's small brow creased as he considered this. "So you mean those boys have a family with a boy instead of a girl?"

"Yeah, kind of," Takahiro said rather awkwardly, kicking himself for not explaining it better.

"Is that bad, Nii-chan?"

"Some people think it is," Takahiro answered softly.

Misaki frowned at his brother. "Do you think so?" he whispered.

Takahiro looked at Misaki, "Well, I don't know much about that kind of thing, but I don't know if that kind of lifestyle is really healthy for our society."

Misaki dropped his eyes hearing his brother's mild condemnation. "How does a boy know if that's what he is or not?" he asked. "Can other people tell by looking at him?"

Takahiro looked at Misaki curiously perplexed by his little brother's questions. "People say they just know Misaki, and as for whether or not other people can tell, that's hard to say."

Takahiro suddenly felt worried. Misaki had been forced to switch schools when they moved and the transition had been very hard on the younger boy.

At his old school, Misaki had been a happy child with lots of chums. Now, after the accident, it Misaki seemed much more quiet and nervous. His transition in his new school because of this hadn't been particularly smooth and the boy had been having difficulty making friends. Misaki never let on about this though, he acted as if everything was the same as before. It was a teacher who had relayed this information to Takahiro.

"Now I like I said, I don't want to ever hear you using names like that, Misaki, but maybe if other people are calling this boy that, perhaps it would be better for you to steer clear of him. Okay? You don't need to be getting into the middle of that kind of trouble."

At Takahiro's words Misaki felt a lump form in his throat. He looked down and smoothed a page of the open magazine in his lap. "Okay, Nii-chan, I won't. I promise." Misaki whispered.

"Good boy," Takahiro smiled, lightly ruffling Misaki's hair for about the tenth time that evening. "You want to read some more?"

"Um… actually I'm kind of tired," Misaki mumbled.

"You all ready for bed?"

"I still have to brush my teeth."

"Well, get to it champ," Takahiro prodded, giving his little brother a light poke in the ribs.

"Nii-chan!" Misaki squealed at the sensation, scrambling out of the bed before Takahiro got it in his mind to really tickle him seriously.

"Don't take too long in there; I want to get ready too. I need my beauty sleep you know," Takahiro called out after Misaki.

Misaki dashed into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He stepped up to the vanity and grabbed his toothbrush. Looking in the mirror the lightness of spirit that the brothers' last exchange had brought quickly evaporated.

Misaki set his toothbrush down and studied himself in the mirror. The word Kato called him returned to the boy once more. He cocked his head to the side and heard his brother's words in his head again, "_people say they just know Misaki."_

Misaki sighed and dropped his eyes from the mirror.

"_Takahashi Misaki. Eight years old. Grade school student. Homo. Dear Nii-chan please forgive your little brother."_

**OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

**Hey, Thank all you readers for the feedback on the last chapter! Hope this one pleases as well._  
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	2. 2: Summer Lessons: Akihiko

**Disclaimer: I do not own Junjou Romantica or any of its characters.**

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>Minimum Damage<p><strong>Minimum Damage<strong>

**Akihiko (Age Sixteen): Summer Lessons**

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><p>Akihiko opened his eyes slowly.<p>

He sighed realizing he must have dozed off. That he'd managed to sleep in the midst of such insufferable heat surprised him.

_I must have been really knackered._

Long slender fingers plucked at a bit of the crumpled sheets surrounding him. The humidity had stolen their crispness and left them feeling slightly sodden. His own bare flesh had fallen victim to the heavy air as well and Akihiko realized there wasn't an inch of him that didn't feel either slick or sticky.

He lay there on the futon, not ready to rise yet. Beneath the soft weight of thick blond lashes, his pale eyes drifted; their usual sharpness dulled by his lethargy.

Akihiko watched the languid dance of dust motes illuminated by the slivers of sun stealing in through the cracks of the drawn blinds. In this moment, he resonated with this particulate: he felt himself a multitude of tiny bits, spinning, suspended, scattered.

_Perhaps there is a sentence here somewhere._

He was like a minimalist sculptor these days with his words, seeking to reduce them to their purest essence: stripping down, carving away, striving to reveal infinite complexity through something exceedingly simple.

He yawned and shifted.

Brushing the palm of his hand over his cheek, Akihiko frowned at the new sensation of small patches of stubble scattered amidst his sixteen-year-old down. He had shaved for the first time over a week ago and not since.

As his father was off on business, Tanaka had taught him how.

_He's always away… Even when he's here._

Pushing the familiar melancholy aside, Akihiko recalled some of the darker European guests gathered around his grandfather's gaming table back in England. Men who sported an "after five" shadow fifteen minutes past setting their razors down in the morning.

Considering this, he was grateful for his own sparse hair, if this was to be the extent of it. As a genetic return on the results of his parents' unfortunate investment in each other, however, this was still a very poor benefit indeed.

Even so, Akihiko had already decided he preferred his skin smooth. Also he was secretly in no hurry to be a man.

_It all seems so cumbersome…_ _And not just the shaving_.

Closing his eyes again, Akihiko relished the fact that his palm was cool against his cheek, regardless of how fevered the rest of his flesh felt. He sighed and without opening his eyes, swung himself up into a seated position, hoping that just perhaps, when he did open them, his world would look different, transformed somehow.

However, as his head was bowed, when his lids at last unclenched the first thing Akihiko saw was his relaxed cock.

A flicker of emotion sped across his usually impassive face as he studied his unruly organ. There was no doubt this splendid bit of his anatomy had been terrifically altering his life of late.

But this was not the shift he sought.

If anything, in fact, he'd been hoping for something considerably more positive.

Akihiko reached a hand down and pinched his penis lightly between his forefinger and thumb, just behind its hooded head, and lifted it.

_You look so humble at the moment, you troublesome bastard._

He frowned down at the part of him that had not long ago been standing so proud and demanding. The hand not holding himself rubbed absentmindedly over the hot flesh of his stomach and chest.

The late afternoon air was so sultry that the traces of his cock's most recent exclamations still shone, slightly sticky on his salty skin. Akihiko marveled at the lingering sense of lightness in his balls from this. They'd felt so full-blooded and heavy just before his climax.

He released his limp shaft before it recognized his touch and stirred again.

Both of Akihiko's hands drifted to the edge of the futon. Here, he clasped the sheets tight, balling his fists, rolling the fabric between them as a form of ablution.

Turning his head to the side, he felt a black flower bloom in his stomach when he noted a few spots on the white linens already dulled to rust.

_That's my blood. _

_If I were a girl I would no longer be 'pure.'_

As a boy, however, Akihiko had known from the age of five that his nature had already stripped any purity from him.

_I've been soiled since birth._

Looking away from the rumpled sheets quickly and down at lean legs sparsely furred with the lightest of blond hairs, Akihiko's uncomfortable gaze eventually came to rest. He studied the pale length of his over-sized feet, viewing them as though they belonged to another person: alabaster appendages veined with blue just beneath their surface.

Then a sentence came to him.

Akihiko pushed himself up suddenly unaware of anything but the words.

He did not feel the stretch of his limbs, the light shifts of his naked cock and his sac as he stepped, the lingering burn or the sticky drip that gravity pulled from between his legs as he'd stood.

He moved over to the table where all his summer studies were laid out.

Ignoring these, he picked up a leather-bound notebook, opened it to a blank sheet, and picked up a pen.

Within moments he had managed to pin this new arrangement of words to the page. He studied them with a mixture of pleasure and sorrow like an entomologist looking at glassed box of particularly stunning butterflies.

Then a noise caught his attention. He moved over to the window, this time far more aware of all his various aches. Pulling back the blinds slightly, he gloried in the bit of breeze that slipped in through the screen. Its fingers brushed back the fine damp hairs from his forehead.

Akihiko followed them with his own.

Through the raised panes he saw Hiroki in the distance, storming down the path towards the main house, Alexander snapping at his heels. The noise that had drawn his attention was the cacophony of the puppy's barks and Hiroki's furious curses.

Akihiko smiled inwardly at this.

_Why is it that, as keen as Hiroki is, he never seems to figure out that the more he fusses, the more it just stirs Alexander up? _

His internal grin slipped away with the retreating breeze when he heard another noise to the side of him as the remaining figure on the futon shifted.

"My Golden Boy, do you know how beautiful you look right now? Bathed in light, pale and lean. Glistening… With my come still visible on your inner thighs."

Akihiko ignored the voice, despising these humiliating disclosures couched as praise.

"Hiroki's here."

"I haven't released you from your lessons yet."

The imperiousness with which this statement was delivered rankled Akihiko and he felt himself bristle.

"Tanaka will tell young master Kamijou where you are and you know he'll wait in your room for hours.

"Come back to bed."

Dropping the blinds, in quiet rebellion, Akihiko moved back over to the table instead. He picked up a pack of cigarettes from its surface, tapped one out, and lit up. He was pleased to be able to execute this whole maneuver without his traitorous fingers shaking. His first exhalation however was not so steady.

"I didn't care much for today's lesson, _Sensei_."

"Ah, Darling, I can see I was a bit rougher than perhaps I should have been."

A large hand patted the mattress, not far from the incriminating stains, beckoning.

"Come on… I'll be gentler this time and I swear, My Love, tomorrow you can do me."

Akihiko frowned, but the repeat of this enticing, broken promise moved him a step closer to the bed.

"I'm terrible, but I just needed a refill of my Aki-chan so badly I couldn't hold back. Come on, be a good boy now."

Seeing the strength of the desire in the man's eyes Akihiko crossed his arms protectively over his broadening chest and stayed where he stood.

"I don't feel like it at the moment."

"Hah! Your mouth says one thing, Aki, but that lewd body of yours betrays you. Now come here."

He didn't need to look down to know this was true. Akihiko could feel the heated blush creeping over him, pinking his pale skin. His nipples were already hard beneath the cross of his lean arms; his cock growing bigger with each throbbing pulse.

He hated how deeply the low tones and the powerful delivery of the man's voice moved him. He felt himself propelled to the edge of the bed against his will.

No sooner had he reached this, than strong arms pulled him down to its damp surface.

"Oi, mind my cigarette!"

Thick fingers plucked the fag from his thin ones. Akihiko watched mournfully as it was crushed out in the ashtray on the bedside table after a quick puff between new lips.

"You're too young to start smoking, it's a filthy habit."

Stronger hands than his then gripped Akihiko's wrists, moved, and pinned them over his head.

"And you'd do well to mind your tone with your elders, Aki."

Akihiko stilled. He kept his face blank at the truer hardness visible just beneath his tutor's honeyed shallows.

_When I am free from this place I will mind no one._

Feeling the firmness of this resolve, he allowed the breath he'd been holding to slip silently out from his nose.

His seeming surrender caused the hold on his wrists to ever so slightly relax.

"I must remember to thank your father for allowing me to stay in the garden house. It's so much more conducive to your summer studies than the main house would have been."

The voice hovering above Akihiko was thick with satisfaction.

Akihiko turned his head away from the dark eyes that ravished him more deeply than the cock that had been in his ass just an hour before.

"If he was really a good host, he would have at least put in some air-conditioning."

Pale eyes drifting, Akihiko studied the dancing motes again: his movement to the bed had reinvigorated them. He wondered if any of these were the same ones he'd observed earlier, still suspended, still spinning.

"So delicate, My Boy.

"Braving the elements, sweat and blood and come, these are revelries of manhood polite society steals: the honest sensations of our bodies stripped from us."

A hot tongue laved against Akihiko's nipple underscoring this point. Akihiko closed his eyes against the electric prickle this touch elicited, the tip of his nipple already raw from earlier worryings. He turned his head back to center, eyes still closed, and felt his wrists finally released completely as the graying head of his summer tutor slipped down lower.

"I do love you, Aki-chan."

The confession rumbled against the beading flesh of Akihiko's chest before the man's mouth focused on a different means of articulation.

As he lay there, arms still stretched over his head, Akihiko sighed once before his cock overtook him.

_In all my wild imaginings I never envisioned that this is what one might consider love looked like._

He thought of Hiroki pulling a book from the shelves in his room, patiently waiting while he finished his "summer lessons."

Before the flood of rising bodily sensations drowned out his cognition, once more Akihiko wished that when he opened his eyes his world might look different.

But he knew already it was a wish without any hope behind it.

He sighed again between gasps and succumbed.

* * *

><p><strong>I was always curious about Akihiko and his tutor. <strong>


	3. 3: Sunny Side Up: Akihiko Act I

**Minimum Damage:**

**Akihiko (Age Six)**

**Sunny Side Up: Chapter I**

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><p>Thin shoulders tense at the sounds emanating from the hallway. Pale eyes drift down to the fine china plate and fix on the happy face arranged there by Cook. Two sunny-side up eyes, a biscuit nose, and a crisp, bacon-curled smile cheerfully greet Akihiko.<p>

The six-year-old frowns. He had fleeting hopes of escaping the morning unscathed.

Given the row and the crashing of crystal, the drunken shouts and sobs that wept through the walls of his bedroom last night, he thought today would most likely be one of her "bed" days. He knows it's horrible of him to feel disappointed that it appears otherwise.

"I don't care. You're my editor. _You_ find a way for me to get an extension! My last book made your company's year, so I think I'm entitled to a little bloody accommodation! Don't you?"

Try as he might to sit perfectly still, Akihiko can't help but shift as the voice drawing closer rubs against all his raw spots. He's always felt more than a small bit of wonder at how the woman can manage to sound so hard and so soft simultaneously.

"What do you expect me to do? I'm blocked! There's only so many different ways to write a fuck and keep it interesting… I know they classify it as romance, But you know what the ladies really want... The pulse and the throb that will keep their panties damp!"

To hear her talk now would shock her loyal followers since out in the world she is the picture of refinement, the perfect lady: always soft spoken, every word carefully chosen, each movement carrying a geisha's grace.

_Behind closed doors, however…_

A lilting laugh sends a shiver coursing down Akihiko's spine. He's all too familiar with the hard shoals beneath that siren song to hear anything but danger.

"Maybe I need to spend time doing some more _research_." The laugh sounds again. There's a pause and then the voice become more serious. "Oh, _that_ particular project is over. I threw him out last night, fucking bastard!

"How many does that make? I've lost track for this year eight months ago- back in March… Well, I can't help it if I yearn for passion and find only pricks!

"Darling, you laugh and say I'm terrible but if I was a man you'd be acknowledging my prowess and be urging me on to my next conquest!"

Akihiko regards his breakfast and contemplates whether or not, if the cook had given Egg Man some orange slice ears, his edible companion would have been able to discern the bitterness that has slipped in to fill all the cracks now in between the woman's words. Even without ears Akihiko suspects his cohort has intuited the impending disaster, as his shiny yolk eyes seem to be losing their luster. Akihiko thinks his friend wise, despite his egg-headed shortcomings, and endeavors to adopt a similar expression of blankness. It's the one he has been practicing in the looking glass in his bedroom lately on the nights he's locked in and has grown tired of his other ways of amusing himself.

Last night he was able to keep his "safe face" expression for over an hour, only blinking when his eyes got so dry as to start burning. Given all the drama that was playing in the backdrop, he counts this as quite an accomplishment and his narrow chest puffs ever so slightly at the recollection.

Like a balloon with a slow leak, the soft swell deflates the moment _She_ enters the room.

Akihiko freezes as he feels her gaze sweep over him. He knows he is being assessed, weighed, measured, and no matter how hard he's tries he will somehow come out lacking. He pulls all his courage and raises his head. Aiko Usami is passing the cordless phone to the "new" Tanaka: the butler shipped over from Japan who has just recently taken over his elderly father's post in the household. He has been standing in silent attendance in the formal dining room with Akihiko.

"Fucking editors, Tanaka. Don't ever become a writer," Aiko's voice sounds extremely weary. "Even if it's something as trite as romance novels they'll still try and break you every chance they get."

"Of course, Usami-sama." Tanaka turns away with the phone and when he turns back, a tray bearing a bloody Mary has magically appeared in his hands. Aiko looks at the drink and there is only the barest flicker of longing evident before a practiced curl of disdain curves her lips.

"No," She says quickly. "Coffee... Hot, black... And lots of it."

Despite his desire to remain blank, Akihiko can't help but raise his blond brows at this.

_So this is not a "bed" day but a "new start" day instead._

He is pleased that though only six, he knows enough to understand this. It alleviates some of his anxiety and promises the possibility of something that might even turn mildly pleasurable. However, this knowledge also allows him to harden the tender ground of his heart early against any seeds of gentle hope the woman might inadvertently cast there.

He watches her go sit at the other end of the table. She looks immaculate this morning compared with last night's dishabille. She's dressed perfectly. Her hair is carefully coiffed. Her fine-pored skin is flawless, no trace of tears or troubled sleep. Bee stung lips purse and remarkably clear, dark eyes narrow, catching her son's gaze.

"Good morning, Aiko-san," Akihiko says softly.

"Such formality, Autumn, my sweet boy. Come give your mother a proper greeting."

She has been calling him by this for six months now, ever since their return to England after their last brief trip to Japan, refusing to use his Japanese name because of a cross-continental dispute she's currently engaged in with his father.

Akihiko wonders suddenly if "father" is the right word, as Fuyuhiko Usami is a man, who, outside such rare maternal trips, he sees but once a year on his birthday as part of his parents' "arrangement."

While this is not the first time Aiko has taken to calling him by some appellation other than the one he was given at birth, this one has endured the longest. The others usually cycle out and are replaced with another incarnation every few weeks. She even registered him as "Autumn Usami" for the start of school this term. Akihiko looks down at his plate before rising. He finds the blunt Englishness of the name particularly distasteful. Because of it he has been forced to endure mad teasing from the boys at school who relate the name and the prettiness of his foreign beauty to something feminine, therefore making him and his already obvious strangeness all that much more suspect.

Looking down at his yolkan plate partner, Akihiko stifles the sigh that has bubbled in his bony chest. He takes a moment to reach out and flip Mr. Egghead's porky smile upside down.

"Autumn, stop trifling with your food and come here!"

_There it is: the lion's roar behind the pussy cat's purr._

Suddenly Akihiko feels much more settled. She had set him a trap with her early offer of informality, but Aiko Usami is still here and knowing this now he can conduct himself appropriately. He rises silently from his spot at the other end of the long table and tries to move as slowly as possible in covering the length between them without appearing as though he is stalling. Drawing nearer, he finds himself in awe as he always does when she's properly put together, with how beautiful the lady Usami is.

_She is so pretty. _

_"Too pretty"_, she informed him at the age of two, _"to be a mother,"_ which is when she exorcised that word from his vocabulary.

He has called her Aiko for years now.

Aiko, however, occasionally refers to herself as "Koko" in those rare moments when she is feeling tender, and those not so rare ones when she's feeling put upon. This was what he originally called her when he first lost his "mother," as the word "Koko" tumbled pleasantly off his two-year-old tongue. Akihiko never uses "Koko" these days, though occasionally Aiko lures him to it: he had all taste for that particular title slapped out of him ages ago.

Arriving at the woman's side, Akihiko can see Aiko's armor is not quite as polished as it looked from a distance. The blush on her cheeks is not natural and there's the palest of purple hues beneath her icy eyes. Seeing this, he's aware she's not disengaged herself from her last "project" quite as easily as she let on in her phone call.

In terms of her past lovers (of which there have been many) he'd found this last one more agreeable than most. In part because the man had a love of motor cars and was quite willing to talk about them with his darling Koko's "six-year-old, orphaned nephew." More so, however, Akihiko found this last of amours congenial, because he liked to take Aiko out on long weekends, leaving "nephew" and staff with extended periods of blissful peace in the Usami's palatial London flat.

Akihiko braces himself against his inclination to wince at her touch as Aiko reaches out and runs long, tapered fingers through his pale blond hair.

"Soft as a ghost," she whispers stroking his white-gold wisps. Akihiko wonders if this is an observation or a wish. Then Aiko's voice changes, becoming somehow both harder and sweeter.

"Your old Koko has been terribly neglectful of late hasn't she, Darling?" Akihiko remains silent at these words, counting the seconds to himself.

The average so far is fifteen.

She must be feeling particularly contrite: this morning she only allows ten to elapse before her usual follow up. "New start, what do you say, Autumn, Love? I promise we will spend a lot more time together. Okay? We'll do loads of fun things… beginning today."

It was the start of a three day weekend and Akihiko's plans were to write today. He is in the middle of a tale about a family of foxes and things are at a critical juncture, the mother fox having just been torn to bits by a pack of lean hounds.

The dark-eyed, blue-blooded vixen before him removes her hand from his head and sighs as though she has just remembered something. "Drat, I forgot all about my damn editor. Sweetie, Koko has to finish her book before she can play.

"Too bad I am fresh out of ideas..." Aiko leans forward, picks a silver spoon up off crisp linen, and stirs the coffee that was silently set on the table mere moments after she sat down. Akihiko notes the sudden sly slant to her eyes. He finally allows himself a soft sigh.

_She's so transparent, what does she think? That I am still an infant? I 'll be seven next week._

"Where are you?" He has been reading his mother's fuck books since he was four.

When Aiko discovered her only child's reading, she only encouraged him to continue: her books have replaced his bedtime stories. She says that this is helpful, as her average reader is not much brighter than a five-year-old anyways; never mind the fact her six-year-old son currently reads at a high school level.

"Last chapter, final scene." Cool eyes scrutinize him sharply.

"Where have they fucked so far?"

Neither Akihiko nor his mother notice the silent, standing Tanaka stiffen at his question. Aiko provides a list of locations and Akihiko nods his head slightly. Having overheard her constant complaints about every detail of the plot already, he has a fairly good understanding of what is going on.

_It's all so formulaic anyways._

"Have him take her in the stairwell."

Aiko tilts her head. Akihiko watches her stiff curls quiver at the movement. Her lips twist slightly and as always he can't quite make out if it's a sneer or a smile. Then she utters three simple words.

"Tell me more."

Akihiko pauses. He knows if he doesn't provide something, after last night's dissolution he is now going to be her stand in for male distraction until she can secure one that's more suitable. She will no doubt engage him all day unless she's kept busy writing.

"Bent over the railing, tight skirt hiked, black garters, he in a disheveled tuxedo."

Akihiko is simply relating to her the details as he saw them, here in the apartment, less than a week ago. He'd ask her if she doesn't remember, especially after the wicked grin she'd shot him in between her frantic gasps, but it isn't worth the blows he knows would follow. Besides he's certain she doesn't: he could smell the alcohol from where he stood at the base of the stairs.

He supposes that's why she keeps him around. He's become a relatively trouble-free recording device for her, a surrogate memory bank.

"Is the vertigo she feels from the height she's suspended over or is it _love_?" Akihiko adds this but his tone does not indicate the sarcastic humor he intends. This is fortunate, as after another keen evaluative stare, Aiko leans back in her chair.

"Well, I'll be. That's perfect! Those sad cows will eat that up in second, right along with their supermarket éclairs."

His mother suddenly rises, grabbing her coffee from the table. "We'll do something later after I've finished my writing, Autumn Dear. Now go eat your breakfast before it gets cold."

A slight quirk of Akihiko's mouth is the only shift in his expression and doesn't occur until after his mother has clearly left the room. Silently he pads back down to his end of the table for a reunion with Egg Man. No sooner does he sit then Tanaka appears at his side.

"Would you like a fresh plate, Usami-sama?"

Akihiko looks at the now congealed stare of his breakfast companion. He picks up his knife and punctures the yolks blinding the frowning face on his plate. Deciding he doesn't care to share any more of his words that morning, Akihiko shakes his head "no" and begins eating.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong>

**So in the last incarnation of this fic Akihiko's mother was English. **

**I was following Freakylemurcat's fanon. If you haven't read any of her stories they are marvelous! I love her back story for Akihiko, wonderfully humorous and tragic. And some fucking hot lemons the Lemur writes as well.**

**Anyway, it was pointed out by another reader in a different story of mine that despite his coloring, Akihiko is fully Japanese. And there is apparently indication somewhere that his father took the Akihiko's mother's name to become Usami, which happens in Japan if the woman's family is of higher standing.(Offers some insight into why Papa Usami didn't marry Haruhiko's mother...)  
><strong>

**So I have made alterations to keep things more canonical. **

**Hope this new twists works, but I think it will. You tell me.**

* * *

><p><strong>Thank you for all the follows and favorites for the last chapter "Summer Lessons." To my wonderful reviewers: Thank you so much! The thoughtful content of your reviews is so gratifying and makes me feel I have accomplished something with this series. This piece will have two more chapters. <strong>

**Hope to hear from you again or anew and thank you for reading!**


	4. 4: Sunny Side Up: Akihiko Act II

**Minimum Damage**

**Sunny Side Up: Chapter Two**

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><p><em>Recent rain leaves mist draped across green pastures. Wet grasses, morning-cold, chill tender paws. The kit bolted from the scene of his dam's death, hackles raised, tail curled under but now, at a safe distance, already the hounds' baying dims in his ears, the grief of his loss likewise.<em>

_Within the mind of the animal the past is something that must be shed quickly for survival. Only the present exists._

_Sharp eyes catch movement beneath bent, sodden blades. The tucked brush of tail unfurls and pointed ears switch forward. A shiny black nose presses to damp earth and the infant fox's mind reels with the burst of information drawn in with its first curious sniff. Within seconds any lingering notion of "mother" evaporates, the kit's entire consciousness now bent solely on tracking the path of the field mouse's flight to its burrow._

Suddenly, within this grey-green world everything freezes. Another set of young ears twitch, but these are attached to a light-blond head.

Akihiko blinks his eyes as they shift outwards from the rich world within him. It takes a moment for his vision to clear, but all too soon everything comes back into focus: the greasy, London drops sliding down the panes of the window beside him, the stark walls of his room. His head tilts slightly, carefully, as though he's afraid that if he tips it too far its fantastical contents will tumble out. Pinking ears strain and a smooth brow wrinkles with the effort.

Then he hears it.

A sad huff escapes between rosy lips. He had thought that after their breakfast run-in that morning his reprieve would last all day; that she would forget about him again. But apparently not.

_It was to be a "new start" day, after all._

Generally Akihiko moves so languidly it unnerves people, his stillness unbecoming a six-year old boy. But now that his fear is confirmed, he shoots up from the padded window seat he's been curled in and moves with a speed that seems equally unnatural. Tucking his notebook, ink still wet on its pages, beneath the seat's thick cushion he pulls another out. This done, he darts out of his velvet nest, scooping up thick novels and a Kanji dictionary from the floor and shoves these under the pillow at the head of his crisply made bed.

Heart pounding in his ears Akihiko returns to his windowsill, hoping anything incriminating has been successfully stashed. His eyes sweep over a row of bright, model sports cars as he makes one final scan of his room. Gifts from his grandfather, his mother had the maid put them up on a shelf that's so high he hasn't been able to touch them since each was pulled from its brightly wrapped box. The cars' flash of color is the only thing child-like in his small, militarily Spartan bedroom.

_Someday I will have wide-open spaces and rooms filled with toys I can play with whenever I want._

A blush creeps upon pale cheeks at the foolishness of this pledge, but before he can bring himself to further self-recrimination, alert ears once again catch the whisper of footsteps.

Frowning at the loss of the world he's been so rudely pulled from, Akihiko drops his eyes, cheeks still aflame. He picks up his pen and the new notebook. Thin fingers begin to move the nib over the page but his mind is not there: his thoughts remain with his story and not the new words he's setting down.

_A hawk will scare the kit from the field and into a bramble. Exhausted, the little one will fall asleep hiding from the bird's cruel eyes. He'll awaken to the noise of footsteps trampling the brush nearby._

Akihiko's lean body quakes as a shiver snakes through him. He is not sure if it's the imagined kit's fear he feels or his own. Within his mind he tries to soothe his small, wild creature, assuring it that there is nothing menacing out in the bush. In fact, he has determined that a rough but kind-hearted groundskeeper will find the kit and take it in. He has already seen the young fox sleeping peacefully later in the story, curled up on a crude pillow next to a crackling fire, his now-human parent sitting silently nearby, contentedly smoking.

The palsy in his tender flesh stills when Akihiko realizes that in this scene the kit's rescuer looks startlingly like the new Tanaka. Before he has time to consider the implications of this, his gaze flickers over to the door of his bedroom where the knob suddenly rattles. Akihiko drops his eyes to the notebook and turns to a fresh page, his face becoming equally blank.

He hears the door open and the pad of bare feet. Soon the long cushion of the window seat shifts with the weight of a new occupant; its sigh at this addition is only slightly softer than the one that escapes Aiko. While Akihiko's eyes remain fixed on his notebook all his other senses are functioning in overdrive. He feels heat radiating from newly-showered skin, hears the shift of the silk slip she's wearing as she settles. His nostrils quiver, filling with spices and flowers. Beneath this there is the scent of a heavier fruit; it is a perfume that makes Akihiko's throat suddenly catch and his thin chest ache.

It will not be a "new start" day after all. Despite her earlier coffee and declarations, the pull is obviously too much; she's started drinking already, though it's barely past noon.

The hand holding his pen drops limp to his lap as the notebook is pulled from him. Akihiko keeps his head down as his mother reads the decoy he has crafted for her perusal. He had shown her one of his stories months ago, but only after he'd offered it to one of his afternoon tutors. Akihiko can still recall feeling of firm chest against his back as he sat in his tutor's lap while the man read. It was not an unpleasant sensation.

He also remembers, however, the hard press of something else against him that was far less comfortable.

In a moment of rare praise, his tutor had declared his short story "promising." Aiko, however, had offered him a new frown and called it "banal." Akihiko chose to believe her until a month later he found his story, slightly altered, published under one of her pseudonyms in a magazine.

He's shown no one his real words since.

"Still writing, Autumn? I thought you'd move past this craze more quickly."

Akihiko's head remains down; he can tell by the tone of voice and the rustle of pages that she's not looking at him and doesn't expect an answer. After a few minutes of quiet, his eyes shift and from the corner of his vision, he watches as Aiko tosses the notebook aside. Its pages make distressed flapping noises as it tumbles to the polished wood floor.

Only when cold fingers find his chin, does Akihiko's head finally raise. He struggles to keep his expression dull. His mind flashes to his real story and the circling hawk. He wishes that there was a bush nearby that he could dart into, some protected, wooded circle where he was safe.

"I would think that you have seen enough of my trials you'd know already that writing is an exercise in despair and frustration."

The backroom boys' crudeness she displayed talking with her editor at breakfast is gone from her voice and her words now are polished to a hard aristocratic sheen.

His lips involuntarily tighten as Akihiko fights back a snort: for him, in the world of his words he's found only freedom.

Akio's eyes conduct another visual interrogation of her son, but whatever it is that she's hoping to find in his unusually-hued gaze escapes her. After a breath laden with disappointment, she removes her hand from her child's jaw. With a feline's grace she reconfigures herself and moments later she is on her back in the window seat, her still-damp head resting on Akihiko's lap, between bony knees.

A tight knot is suddenly tied in Akihiko's stomach; it stretches upwards and lassos his heart as well. It seems his mother still wants to pretend that they are intimates today and not strangers who reside in the same flat. He tenses as he waits for her to reveal which alien has run of her body at present.

"I was at Oxford, you know. Head of my class in literature. My advisers said I was brilliant… destined for greatness."

Akihiko has kept his head up this time. He watches one of Aiko's hands wave in accompaniment to this oft-sung dirge. The wet hair in his lap feels like a nest of eels. He dares not look down.

"I could have made it … If it wasn't for the cruelty of men. You're all bastards, Autumn."

Though his shoulders feel the desire to curve inward at this critique of his forming character, Akihiko suddenly imagines that last night while asleep, a beam from the moon turned his spine into steel. Aiko senses her son's discomfort and in a rare moment makes an attempt to soften her words.

Well, perhaps you're not…" Even here, however, she's too contaminated by her own personal poison to leave it at this. "Yet… But believe me, I've no doubt you'll grow into it."

Moon-iron intact while he ponders this, Akihiko sits rigidly, unmoving as Akio shifts and resettles herself between his thighs.

"Speaking of bastards… _He_ called this morning…"

At last Akihiko looks down, wondering if he'll be able to discern from his mother's expression which particular "He" she's referring too. However, her eyes are now closed, her face unusually serene, causing him to wonder if perhaps she's passed out. This certainly wouldn't be the first time such a thing has occurred.

She looks very young when the age in her gaze isn't visible. Without make up, her skin is so pale as to be almost translucent. Akihiko's gaze drifts downwards. A slender strap of her slip is off a porcelain shoulder. Beneath thin silk he sees the peaks of hard nipples crowning the swell of her breasts. The rouged half-moon of an areola winks out at him where the silk dips.

His eyes shift away: not from guilt, but distaste.

At last Aiko's lids flutter open again. She gazes up at her son with an expression of annoyed curiosity; the softness of long lashes does nothing to blunt the impact of hard eyes. Her lush mouth purses.

"Why didn't you tell me your birthday was next week?"

_Ah, so it's that bastard…_

Before Akihiko can answer, Aiko captures one of his stunned hands and brings it to her lips. She nips it none-too-softly before settling it atop her crown.

"He's demanding to see you this week instead of next. Something about business… _as usual._ I suppose I'll have to concede.

"That means we'll be spending your birthday together this year." A dark gaze shifts towards the window. "I think I'll call my publicist; at the very least I should be able to get a photo op out of it." Aiko closes her eyes again and pushes up into her son's palm.

Numb fingers begin to clumsily comb through shower-tangled tresses. Akihiko knows that this is what she wants, and that soothing her is his penance for troubling her first with his birth and secondly for forcing an interaction with his father.

"Did he ask you what you wanted?"

Blue veined lids snap open again and Aiko fixes her eyes back on her only son. Akihiko works hard not to blink beneath her now-cool gaze. The nod of a head is all that is offered in answer.

"And what did you tell him?"

As careful as he's been, his tongue suddenly betrays him and the words bubble forth before he can stop them.

"I told him I wanted a bear as big as myself."

It's difficult for Akihiko not to start when this causes Aiko to bolt upright. She twists and tilts her head as she studies him. Seeing he's earnest, a sharp barking laugh escapes her.

"Leave it to you, Autumn… What on earth would you want something like that for? I have never heard of anything so ridiculous."

The chill of her words makes Akihiko's face burn. He turns bright cheeks to the gray London sky outside his bedroom window. His voice is soft.

"I just do."

He's surprised when rather than sting him further with a slap for his impertinence, Aiko merely shakes her head and moments later resettles herself into her previous posture. Apparently she's only drunk enough so far to be in "mellow mode."

_Anger mode must still be a few swallows away. _

Icy fingers take his as Akihiko feels his reluctant hand drawn back to his mother's thick hair. The iron in his spine begins to dissolve. He hesitates only a moment before pressing gentle circles at Aiko's temple. A weary sigh breaks from his chest.

"_Bear_ was your father's nickname, you know. I gave it to him on our first excursion together."

Aiko stares up at her son, but his gaze is fixed on some unseen thing outside the window. Once she realizes he does not intend to look back at her, she looks away herself and continues.

"When your great Uncle Usami died, my father knew he'd be called to step in as president of Usami-corps. That meant no more European high-life… It was back to the corporate trenches of Japan. In his years abroad as international director, your grandfather had been too _corrupted_ by Western influences to find such a shift palatable."

Visions of Akihiko's grandfather suddenly fill a six-year-old head: the now-patriarch of the Usami clan whose command of language and manner is such that he moves between the elite of Japan and Europe with the grace and nimbleness of a hart. Despite how much she hates him, Aiko Usami is like her father in this. Grandfather Usami says the same is expected of him now, as they share the same genes. Keeping his face turned away from his softly drunken mother, Akihiko suddenly wonders what other inheritance has been gifted to him within the family DNA.

"So father wanted someone to step in, someone hungry for a new name and new opportunities. He pulled me from school and told me it was time to marry or else. Apparently he's only really Western when it suits him."

At the catch in his mother's voice Akihiko can't help but tilt his head. He chances a glance down and is stunned to see something there that looks akin to honesty.

"It is not in my blood to be poor, Autumn."

Aiko's eyes and her tone stir an unfamiliar feeling in Akihiko and he wonders if there's a word that exists to articulate it.

_There must be, there is a word for everything if one searches hard enough._

"So the suitors came and when it was your father's turn he took me to the zoo, of all places. It was nothing like the other introductions… all fancy dinners and fine art affairs.

"We walked around for hours. It was sunny that day for the first time in weeks. I had such a lovely outing… I thought that he might actually be different from my other prospects."

"I should have been smart enough to realize that the man simply liked seeing things in cages."

Shifting away from the suddenly bitter expression on Aiko's face, Akihiko clenches the hand not carding his mother's hair until his knuckles turn white. He wonders that if this is really the truth, why he's not held Usami Fuyuhiko's attention more raptly.

"When we stopped outside the bear pit, I watched them and I thought that he was rather bear-like himself: all growly and lumbering. He laughed when I told him so."

"Then he smiled and told me as charmingly awkward as they might look, that they're quite voracious predators."

This said, Aiko pushes her son's stilled hand from her hair and rises. She turns and faces Akihiko as she shrugs the wayward strap of silk back up onto her shoulder. Standing there, barefoot, slip-clad, her tumbled tresses awry, if not for her proud posture she would look like a waif.

"So, I suppose one way or another, the nickname I gave your father was quite apt."

For a moment Aiko's mask falls away again and the woman looks quite lost. Her head tips to the side and after an uncomfortable minute, clouded eyes find and focus on Akihiko once more. She stares at her inscrutable child, sitting there, beholding her so solemnly: raised in England but already so much more Japanese than she. A deep sigh rattles her chest.

"He'll be here for you tomorrow at nine sharp."

It frustrates Aiko that this announcement brings no shift in Akihiko's expression. If he would only behave in a more normal manner, she assures herself that she might like her son more. It is the child's fault that his stoicism drives her to be cruel. Were her vision not softened from earlier imbibing, however, she might see the vein in her son's slender neck suddenly pulsing at a racehorse's pace.

"He'll bring you your bear, Autumn. And this time I'll let you keep it.

She turns to walk away, not caring to see where her spear lands, suddenly consumed with an irrational hatred for her sole offspring, matched only by her disdain of the man who planted such an aberrant seed within her and then left to tend other gardens.

"It can remind you that no matter what gifts he offers to woo you, he has another family… One that he loves. You are merely an investment in his financial future, a security deposit so to speak."

Aiko pauses in her trek to the door for a moment, allowing her words to sink in. There's no noise but the sound of raindrops pattering against the window's thick glass. Disappointed with the silence that follows her revelation, her shoulders slump slightly, but she shakes this off quickly and straightens. A moment later she's gone, the door closing with a loud "click" behind her.

Minutes tick by as Akihiko sits unmoving. He's heard whispers of Usami Fuyuhiko's other family among the servants, but this is the first time that his mother has ever spoken of it. Hearing the words said out loud by Aiko causes a startling weight to suddenly settle on Akihiko's chest. He feels like he did the time he got thrown off one of grandfather's ponies and was left with no breath.

At last some part of him regains motion. Akihiko can feel the warm wetness of this loosed bit of himself sliding down from the corner of one of his unblinking eyes. He gathers the teardrop up on the tip of his finger. The drop sits fatly there, quivering slightly.

_Surface tension… That's what holding it together._

Akihiko wonders if the same can be said of humans. Not immediately arriving at an answer, he presses his finger against the chilled pane beside him so that his tear can join its wild counterparts slicking down the other side of the glass.

_Let the sky cry for me, I have no use for tears._

This done, he rises and steps silently to his bedroom door. With the soft creak of hinges he's out in the hall and soon finds himself standing outside Aiko's own closed bedroom door. Tipping his head, he can hear on the other side of the polished mahogany the tap of fingers on keyboard, the clink of ice rattling loosely in a crystal tumbler, and every now and again a soft curse or a hiccupping sob.

After listening to this repeating chorus for a number of minutes, Akihiko returns to his room quietly closing the door behind him. He steps back to his window seat and bends over, retrieving his false notebook. Small hands smooth the ruffled feathers of his decoy's pages before he tucks it away again and pulls out his real words.

Resettling himself back into his cushioned perch, he opens his notebook. Its creased back falls open easily to where he left off. Pale eyes scan the page looking for the words: the key to portal that will allow him to fall back into this world.

_Within the mind of the animal the past is something that must be shed quickly for survival. Only the present exists._

Akihiko is unconscious of the soft sigh that escapes him as he picks up his pen and begins writing.

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><p><strong>Thank you for reading and for your patience in awaiting an update.<strong>


	5. 5: Sunny Side Up: Akihiko Act III

**Minimum Damage**

**Sunny Side Up: Chapter Three**

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><p>Akihiko allows a sigh to escape him as he's greeted by row upon row of glassy-eyed stares.<p>

The soft breath is laden with disappointment: already, within the span of their short visit, he's been deemed far less interesting by his father than the man's phone. Fuyuhiko Usami has been talking or texting non-stop, outside of a quick but extremely formal greeting with his child on the threshold of Aiko Usami's flat and a few stern queries in Japanese in the limo about school and tutors.

As his father looks up in between correspondences, Akihiko quickly darts his pale eyes away. He tilts his shaggy head to the side and does his best to appear that nothing else in the world currently exists- except for the wall of designer bears on display before him.

However, the moment that Fuyuhiko returns his gaze to his mobile, Akihiko tentatively glances over again. He can't help it: it's as though the man is magnetized. No matter how hard he tries, he just can't keep his attention elsewhere.

Pretending that his eye is a camera (it's not that far a stretch since his mind is perfectly photographic), he drinks in the details before him with the zeal of the terribly parched.

He notes the gathering gray at the man's temples; the lines etched by experience and excess around Fuyuhiko's dark eyes. The strong angle of the elder Usami's jaw and the breadth of his father's shoulders stir up strange sensations in his low belly and make his chest tight. It is a feeling he has experienced before, studying some of his mother's many suitors, but it will take several years yet before Akihiko is accurately is able to name it.

Taking in his father's proud stance, unconsciously the boy squares his own narrow shoulders.

Fuyuhiko's powerful physique is rendered even more impressive by the perfectly tailored suit that he wears, an ensemble that undoubtedly cost as much as one of the toy store clerks' annual salaries. Looking down for the merest of moments at his own wrinkled jumper, Akihiko's brow furrows. His long fingers feel suddenly clubbish as he fumbles with his sweater, attempting to rectify his rumples.

Silently he vows to be more conscious of his wardrobe in the future.

Tender ears strain to translate as Fuyuhiko now speaks sternly into his phone. Though his face remains impassive, it is clear the President of Usami-corps is reprimanding the unfortunate on the other end of the line. Akihiko finds the tone both terrifying and mesmerizing.

So entranced is he by his father's brusque cadence he forgets himself. He starts when Fuyuhiko suddenly snaps his phone shut and catches him staring.

"Made up your mind yet, Akihiko?"

Akihiko can't help but wince. His father's manner has not quite shifted gears from his call and the sharpness of the question catches the fragile, fluttering wings of his heart like a thorn.

Fuyuhiko notes the way his son's pale eyes cloud over. He grunts lightly, annoyed by his own abruptness. Fighting the urge to look at his watch, he diverts his dark eyes to the wall of bears.

"I know I said I'd bring you a bear, Akihiko, but isn't this better? Getting to choose the one you want, yourself?"

Fuyuhiko has softened his tone, but his approximation of "fatherly" is stiff and awkward and both Usami's are acutely aware that this choosing has come about because he couldn't find time to make the purchase himself.

When he'd given Akihiko the chance to select his birthday gift, Fuyuhiko never imagined the boy would actually suggest something specific. His other son, Haruhiko, has always deferred to his discretion when similar offers have been made.

The elder Usami had been imagining something along the lines of books or bonds. Bears were the farthest thing from his mind and he thought the request peculiar for a boy of six.

_Or is it seven? _

Even so, he felt bound to honor Akihiko's petition, considering how little time they spend together.

Akihiko looks thoughtful at his father's query. Fuyuhiko reads this as consideration of which fuzzy creation to select. In reality, his son is determining whether or not to drag this process out. It will take well into his teens, however, before Akihiko commits to a program of paternal annoyance with any real vigor. Today, he still harbors concerns about irritating his father.

Truthfully, he had selected his bear the first time his eyes swept the ranks.

Akihiko amends himself here. _More like the bear chose me._ There no doubt in his mind that the moment he met that particular bear's onyx eyes, it winked at him.

Nodding to the overly-attentive shopkeeper who has been hovering nearby, Akihiko indicates the mischievous Teddy. "May I please see that one, Sir?"

Flashing a saccharine grin, the man steps quickly over and pulls the bear from the shelf. "Good choice, young man!"

He sets the giant plushie in front of Akihiko with flare. "We don't carry many of these, nowadays. Most our bears are handmade here in the U.K. But this is a small custom outfit in Japan that the store owner's family has been working with since after The War!"

An expression of momentary chagrin flits over the clerk's face when he realizes that, given the obvious heritage of his customers, such a mention of the Allies' triumph might be off-putting.

While Fuyuhiko frowns at the clerk, Akihiko has eyes only for the lovely large bear before him. It is indeed, "as big as himself."

Thin fingers reach out to stroke a honey-colored ear. Bending his knees and dropping down on his haunches, these same fingers soon stretch out the tag that has been carefully stitched to the Teddy's right side near its bottom. There are characters embroidered here and then in English:

_Suzuki Kuma-craft… made in Japan _

Something in Akihiko's chest constricts and he feels even greater conviction that Suzuki-san's wink was no mere trick of the eye. They are soul-mates, he and this great, golden bear: creatures made in Japan but displaced- bright misfits of sorts in the gray London landscape.

Looking up, though he really needs no further confirmation, Akihiko scans Suzuki-san's face hoping that he'll get another wink. Suzuki-san, however, remains wisely blank. Akihiko understands immediately, but he resolves that he'll not let his new friend out of his sight until he witnesses him wink again.

"Well, Akihiko?"

Despite the air in his father's words that imply "hurry up!" Akihiko offers the man a rare, true smile.

"He's perfect, Father. Thank you."

_Except for that bow… We'll have to get you a new one Suzuki-san… Something that suits you._

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><p><strong><em>So, at the start of this piece, I said it would be three chapters. But you all should know by now that I can never hold to the number of chapters I originally intend. I also realize that this is a short chapter. However, I When I got to this last line, it just seemed like such a natural stopping point. Plus, I decided I wanted to end on a light note before I dipped back into the angst pool.<em>**

**_ This little anthology is quite close to my heart and t_****_hose of you who left reviews for the last chapter (or any chapter) have my sincere appreciation. I hope to hear from you again, or new "you's" who are out there reading. Thank you to for the follows and favorites too.  
><em>**


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